Hello, and welcome to The Edge, the newsletter that brings you groundbreaking stories from the frontiers of technology and science.
We’ve got some great stories for you today, including electronic drag racing speed records, the Atlas double comet, smartwatch doodling on your hand and the efficiency of modern machine learning. As always, we’ve added extra stories under each article should you find yourself in a curious state of mind.
Efficiency is king
Image credit: Christopher Burns/Unsplash
OpenAI Finds Machine Learning Efficiency Is Outpacing Moore’s Law
AI is improving - fast. These days, machine learning systems are able to play games like Starcraft and Dota 2, as well as other games like poker.
Better computer chips are a key reason for this continuous, accelerated improvement, but research organisation OpenAI argue that this progress can also be measured by the improvements made in the algorithms used for machine learning. In a blog post (and a to-be-reviewed paper) Danny Hernandez and Tom Brown of OpenAI state how they’ve begun tracking a new measure for machine learning efficiency. The measure in question is the 2012 benchmark image recognition algorithm AlexNet.
Using this algorithm as a metric, they tracked how much computing power newer algorithms consumed to match or exceed the AlexNet benchmark. In doing so, they realised that algorithmic efficiency had doubled every 16 months, which outpaces Moore’s law by 8 months. More specifically, image recognising AI in 2019 required 44 times less computing power to achieve a performance similar to AlexNet. The researcher’s also saw increased efficiency in other comparisons. OpenAI Five Rerun, another AI algorithm, used five times less computing power to overtake world-champion-beating OpenAI Five at Dota 2 just three months later.
Gordon E. Moore and his impact on computer history
Buzz at the dragstrip
Image credit: Steve Huff
An electric dragster has passed 200MPH for the first time
Drag racing isn’t exactly kind on the environment, with some dragsters pumping out up to 11,000 horsepower. These speed monsters can guzzle up to 15 gallons of fuel on a single run. Drag enthusiast Steve Huff is working on making the sport a little greener.
Huff’s car, named “Current Technology”, has set a trap speed of 201MPH at the Tucson Dragway in Arizona. According to his website, Huff’s dragster boasts 1,950 horsepower and 1,000 lb-ft of torque via its brushless A/C motor and 800-volt system. Current Technology’s run beats the previous record for fastest electronic dragster, which was 189MPH, set last year by Don Garlits.
This is an incredible achievement and shows that electric vehicles have impressive potential for motorsports and EV racing.
Drag racing’s origins
Atlas is a strange comet
Image credit: Michael Jager/Spaceweather.com
Comet Atlas has become a bizarre comet within a comet
A few months ago, Comet Atlas (C/2019 Y4) started to shine bright, which many thought would put on quite a show. That all ended when it broke apart faced with the sun’s heat and radiation. Recent photos, like the one above, show how Atlas is still flying around the inner solar system as an unusual comet within a comet.
In the image, you can see a small, white mini-comet with its own tail inside the green coma of the main comet. Astronomer Tony Phillips writes that Atlas is hurtling towards the sun with a close approach taking place on May 31st inside the orbit of Mercury. According to Phillips, the intense heat could cause the core to fragment further or disintegrate entirely into dust and gas.
If we’re still here 6,000 years from now, and if Atlas survives its trip around the sun, whatever remains of the comet is expected to fly past the Earth once more.
History is scattered with incredible observations of comets
Your hand is a canvas
Image credit: ACM SIGCHI
Smartwatch Hack Turns the Back of Your Hand Into a Canvas
It’s no secret that smartwatches have somewhat small screens. The convenience that the pint-sized devices offer can also be a challenge as the small screen comes with some limitations. To combat this, researchers from Leibniz University Hannover created a special stylus that turns the back of a wearer’s hand into a canvas for doodling.
The stylus allows the user to scribble and draw on the back of their hand, effectively turning the back of their hand into an extension of the watch screen. The stylus is similar in size to a standard ballpoint pen. At the tip is a bulge that houses a magnet, with the rest of the stylus being filled by a battery good for around 12 hours of battery life. The stylus communicates with the watch via Bluetooth.